


Wooden Nickels

by shootenanny



Category: South Park
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-13
Updated: 2019-01-26
Packaged: 2019-04-22 12:46:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14308926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shootenanny/pseuds/shootenanny
Summary: One week shy of his sixteenth birthday and Stan discovers that he was the unfortunate bargaining chip in a deal between his mother and the devil. His only hope is finding some kind of loophole before he becomes the devils lackey. It wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the omens and whatever the hell is going on between his two best friends. In other words, just another week in South Park.





	1. Chapter 1

_ Don't take any wooden nickels _   
_When you sell your soul_   
_A devil of a time awaits you_   
_When the party's over_   
_You're on your own_

Stan’s life was pretty simple, or as simple as it could get in a place like South Park

His parents were reasonable, unlike Kyle’s tyrant of a mother. His family had money, unlike Kenny’s. And he wasn’t Cartman, which in and of itself was enough to make Stan very grateful indeed.

If it weren’t for the fact that he was so nice, he would be smug. But Stan was nice, and he wasn’t smug. He wanted his friends to be as content as he was.

Well perhaps not Cartman… but he didn’t want Cartman to actively suffer, which was as nice as you could get when it came to someone like Cartman.

That evening, Stan was walking home from soccer practice. It was late and the rest of the team had left a half hour earlier. Stan had taken his time in getting changed. He’d been in a pensive mood, preferring to stay lost in his own internal musings whilst the rest of his team rushed and hollered around him.

It was the week before his sixteenth birthday and Stand felt strange, or rather he _didn't_ feel strange, that was the strange part. Growing up he'd been lead to believe that sixteen was an important milestone, the  first gateway to adulthood and honestly he'd expected to feel something different. But he didn't.

Everything was exactly how it had always been and that unsettled him. It was all rather disappointing, to be honest.

He'd been unable to shake this mood for days now, much to the frustration of his friends.

As Stan approached the bus stop, he noticed a dark figure leaning against the wall smoking a cigarette. He figured it was one of the goth kids that liked to loiter around fire escapes. From their height Stan thought maybe it was the tall curly one, what was his name again? Stan felt guilty that he couldn’t remember despite having spent the better part of a term with them during what Kyle liked to refer to as  his 'post Wendy emo phase'.

However, as Stan drew nearer, he realised it wasn’t the tall curly haired goth kid, but rather someone he hadn’t expected to see again. It was Damien. Hadn’t he gone back down to the bowels of hell years ago? Or at least hadn’t he switched schools or something?

Stan was unnerved to find that Damien was staring right at him. Cool dark eyes following his approach as Damien brought the cigarette to his lips again, squinting slightly and cheeks hollowing as he sucked in.

“Hello, Damien,” Stan said carefully.

“Stanley,” Damien greeted on an exhale and smoke curled out from his nostrils like a dragon. His voice was deeper than Stan remembered. But then Stan remembered it being something akin to a hamster on helium. Now it sounded gravelly and rough, he wondered if that was because of the cigarettes.

“Are you back in South Park?” Stan asked, because it was the most polite way he could think of asking what the hell Damien was doing here.

“For the time being.” Damien gazed out at the mountains in the far distance. “Can’t say I missed it. It’s colder than hell here.”

“I thought hell was meant to be hot.”

Damien shrugged, looking amused. The two of them lapsed into silence. Stan glanced up one end of the street and down the other. He wished the bus would hurry up and get here so he could go home and forget about Damien. The kid gave him the chills, the ghost walking over your grave kind of chills that came out of nowhere.

“So my dad remembers.” Damien said suddenly. Stan frowned.

“Remembers what?” he asked as he wracked his brain. Had he done something to piss Satan off? Not lately…

Damien's amusement grew and he flicked his cigarette to the ground. It hissed and died in the snow.

“She hasn’t told you. I didn’t think she would have. That’s quite funny.”

“What’s 'quite funny'?" Stan bit out with growing irritation, "Who hasn’t told me what?” He’d never liked Damien much when they were kids and now he was starting to remember why.

“Talk to your mum,” Damien said. “Tell her my dad says hey.”

"What..?" Stan started but then at that moment the bus pulled up and the doors opened with a tired groan. Damien pushed away from the wall and sauntered off in the opposite direction, hands thrust deep in his pockets and milking his exit for all it was worth.

Stan glared after him, annoyed at the timing of the bus, convinced that Damien had fully intended for it to pull up at that very moment and bring their conversation to a close. Probably used some freaky devil magic to pull it off.

“God damnit,” he muttered under his breath.

* * *

When Stan opened his front door he heard his mother and sister talking in the kitchen. 

He dropped his sports kit at the foot of the stairs and made a beeline for them.

Sharon was at the counter chopping carrots whilst Shelly sat at the kitchen table providing a running commentary of what she didn’t want to eat that night. Shelly was on one of her latest diet fads, Stan wasn’t sure what this one was called, the East Coast Pomeranian C Plan whatever. He didn’t really care.

“Mum is there something you need to tell me about the devil?” Stan asked over Shelly’s running dialogue.

“Shut the hell up, worm, I’m talking!” Shelly snapped. Sharon, however, had stilled, hands frozen over the carrots, still gripping the knife.

“What was that, Stan?” she said in a quiet voice.

“The devil. Is there something you need to tell me about him?"

“Who’ve you been talking to?” She turned around slowly. She'd set the knife down and was wiping her hands on a towel. She looked at Stan with carefully blank eyes.

“Damien… his son.”

“Mum I can’t eat carrots, I can only eat green vegetables this week.” Shelly said.

“Be quiet, Shelly.” Sharon said, still looking at Stan. Stan shifted, feeling uncomfortable under the scrutiny. He wasn’t sure what he'd expected. Honestly, not much surprised him anymore growing up in a place like South Park, but he’d hoped that this time it was nothing. That his mother would be as confused as him. But Sharon seemed to know exactly what this meant, and he could just tell that whatever it was, it wasn’t good.

“Follow me, Stan,” she said and led him out of the kitchen into the relative privacy of the living room. Sharon sat down on the couch, waited for Stan to join her.

“I was afraid of this. I thought maybe he’d forgotten but… one week until your sixteenth birthday. I suppose it makes sense.” Sharon muttered, mostly to herself. She sighed and then turned so she was perched on the edge of the couch, legs crossed delicately and facing Stan. It was a pose that brought to mind the time she'd tried to have 'the talk' with Stan. He felt the same sense of mortification and dread as he'd felt then.

“Now, before I tell you anything, I want you to know that I’m sure there’s a way we can sort this out, so don’t worry.”

"Just tell me, mum."

“All right… some time ago, when I was in college… I wouldn’t have been more than a couple years older than you are now… I made a pact with the devil."

Stan swallowed. He had a feeling it was going to be something like that. And with a growing weight in his stomach, he waited for what he already knew was coming.

“I promised him my first born son.”

There it was, what he'd been afraid of.

“What for?” he asked, because really, that was the important part. What had he been wagered for, what was his life worth to his mother?

“That’s not important it was so long ago.” Sharon waved the question away a little too quickly, suggesting that whatever it was, it would shock and offend Stan to know. He had a sinking feeling his soul had been worth little more than a really good cup of coffee.

"Did you make it so you could meet dad?"

"What?" Sharon blinked and then frowned. "No... no offence to your father but if I was planning on making a deal with the devil for love I would've expected a little...more."

"Then what was it for, mum?"

Sharon sighed. "If you must know it was for a passing grade."

"Jesus Christ mum, you sold my soul for an A?"

"Stanley!" Sharon's voice was sharp but she seemed to collect herself and started again more softly this time, "You know how your grandparents are... anything less would have been unacceptable to them. I felt like I had no choice." She looked at Stan then, right at him, and her eyes were soft and sad and pleading for him to understand. "Back then I didn't plan on having any children. If I’d known then what I’d be like now, I would never have made the deal.” She reached out to tuck an errant strand of Stan’s hair under his hat then cupped his cheek with her palm. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart. Truly sorry.”

Stan didn’t doubt it. Of all the town, his mother had always been one of the most level headed. She’d quite often provided him with much needed words of wisdom, and compared to his father, she was a god damn rock.

He only wished that her mistake didn’t bear such dire consequences for him.

“So what exactly did this deal entail?” he asked and was impressed with how steady he managed to keep his voice. He felt like he was handling finding out that he was little more than currency for the devil quite well.

“I’m not sure… we never went into specifics. I honestly didn’t give it much thought at the time.” She frowned off into the distance, no doubt picturing her younger self with disdain. “I was such a fool… how could I have done something so selfish? So stupid?”

“Mum.” Stan sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. “It’s ok, I forgive you… but are you sure you don’t know anything? I mean am I going to get carted off to hell in a week’s time? I kind of need to know if I’m going to have to pack or something.”

That was the wrong thing to say… tears gathered in Sharon’s eyes and she looked at her son, horrified.

She pulled him into a fierce hug so suddenly that Stan let out a little yelp as the air was forced out of him. He sat there, momentarily stunned and then he reached up to pat an awkward hand against his mother’s back.

“Stan, I’m so sorry!” she cried, breath hitching. “I’m a horrible mother, terrible! I'm so ashamed."

“No mum, you're not horrible, or terrible, or anything. You just... you made a mistake." Stan sighed. A huge mistake, that rested solely on his shoulders, but his mother was only human. Humans made mistakes, didn't they? Anyone could've made this kind of mistake. Right?

Stan resisted the urge to sigh again as his mother cried harder against his shoulder.

Whatever he was going to do, he wasn’t going to be getting any help from his mother.

There was only one other place he could think to go. 

* * *

 

Kyle, as Stan had predicted, was in his room sitting at his desk. The main light was switched off but Kyle had the desk light focused on whatever he was hunched over. His hair stood out in wild tufts, highlighted by the lamplight like some unruly halo. It was a rare occasion that Kyle went without his hat and even rarer that anyone were around to witness it.

Kyle’s window was latched shut when Stan tried to slide it open so he tapped on the glass just loud enough for Kyle to hear. Kyle jumped, spinning round in his chair with an expression of annoyance. When he saw it was Stan, he relaxed and went over to unhook the latch and slide the window open.

“You know I half expect it to be Cartman every time you do that.” Kyle said and shivered. “Freaks me out.”

Kyle had been edgy ever since Cartman’s dirty little habit of sneaking into his room in the dead of night had been unveiled some months ago. Stan supposed it would be a little unnerving waking up to find your worst enemy grinning over you like a demented clown.

“Seriously though, what’s wrong with just using my front door like a normal person?”

Stan shrugged as he shucked off his damp shoes and settled on top of the covers of Kyle’s bed. Out of manners, he kept his shins dangling over the edge to keep from making damp patches from the snowmelt on his jeans.

“This way I don’t have to talk to your mother,” he said. Kyle stood over him, arms crossed and looking like he wanted to say something in defence of Sheila, but then he shrugged and turned away. Fair enough.

“So I’m guessing this isn’t just a courtesy call,” Kyle said as he returned to whatever he’d been poring over on his desk. “What’s up?”

“My mum’s sold me off to the devil.”

"Huh," Kyle murmured distractedly. Then he stopped and swivelled round in his chair. "Wait, what?"

“Apparently she made some deal with the devil before I was born, you know how it goes.”

And sad as it was, they did both knew exactly how it went. This wasn’t a particularly odd occurrence in South Park. The fact that they were even on speaking terms with the devil’s son was evidence enough of this.

That reminded Stan…

“Damien’s back in town by the way. He’s the one who told me.”

“How could your mum have sold you off like that? I thought she was one of the good ones…”

“I don’t think she really thought it through when she agreed to it… but I need your help. I don’t know what kind of deal it is. I don’t know if it means I owe him something or if he’s just going to drag me off to hell.”

Kyle leaned forwards in his chair; he looked very serious with his fingers clasped together and his brows knitted together. Backlit by the lamp his face was a profile of shadows and intensity.

“If he was going to wouldn’t he have done so by now?”

Stan shook his head. "Apparently whatever’s going to happen won’t happen until my sixteenth birthday.”

“…Which is 7 days from now.”

“Right."

“God damnit.”

Stan gave a small, dry chuckle. “I don’t think cursing God is going to help.”

Kyle sat back in his chair. It creaked as he stretched his legs out in front of him. Somewhere between the age of fourteen and fifteen Kyle had shot up in height, finally catching up with the rest of the class who'd all had their growth spurts the year before. Now he was only a little shorter than Stan and he seemed little more than a gangly collection of limbs, elbows and knees. Even then, Stan couldn't help but think of him as smaller.

“How do we keep getting into this crap, dude?” Kyle said, looking soberly at Stan.

Stan shook his head. He didn’t know. He really didn’t know.

“Well,” Kyle started once they had moped enough on their many misfortunes. “I guess first thing to do is find Damien and get him to tell us what the hell’s going to happen next week.” Kyle winced at his turn of phrase. “Sorry.”

Stan shrugged. Whatever.


	2. Chapter 2

Damien, as it turned out, wasn’t too hard to find. It seemed to Stan, that he wanted to be found as he turned up in the very first place they tried looking the following day. In fact they hadn’t even started trying to find him by that point. Stan had only just arrived at the arcade when he'd seen Damien leaning casually against one of the claw machines filled with pastel bunnies and bears. Damien’s pitch black eyes reflected the neon lights and they flickered blue then green then red alternatively. He was staring directly at Stan.

Stan tugged at Kyle’s elbow and nodded at Damien. Kyle looked briefly surprised at having found him so easily, but it quickly dissolved to anger. He marched right over to Damien with Stan in tow. If Kyle was in any way intimidated by Damien’s unnerving dark stare, he didn’t let on. It was at times like this that Stan was eternally grateful for a friend like Kyle.

“Kyle Broflovski,” Damien said as if trying the name on like a pair of old shoes. “Hello again.”

“What does your dad want with Stan?” Kyle demanded. Stan stood just behind Kyle, lifting his head high and trying his damndest not to look like he was hiding behind his best friend. Even though he kind of was.

Damien looked pensive as he pulled something from his pocket and lifted it to his lips. When he took his hand away, Stan realised it was a toothpick. The kid was just one giant orally fixated cliché.

“Honestly, I couldn’t say,” Damien said after a lengthy pause. “But a deal’s a deal so I’m sure he’ll find some use for him.”

“Is he actually going to drag me to hell?” Stan asked and Damien smiled at him over Kyle’s shoulder.

Stan managed to nudge his way in front of Kyle and Kyle dropped back silently, though he continued to glare at Damien.

“That would be the idea, yes.”

Stan and Kyle exchanged glances.

“What if I refuse to go?”

Damien’s smile only grew, toothpick gripped between his teeth.

“You don’t get a choice in the matter.”

“What if we try and stop him?”

“You can try.” Damien shrugged. “But it won’t do much.”

And really, what could they do? There wasn’t much you could do when up against the devil. Stan’s heart sank as he realised this may very well be his last week left on earth.

“You’ll get three omens in the next seven days. I can't tell you what they’ll be, but I’m sure you’ll know once they come. It’s all just protocol, you realise, a count down to the big day.” Damien’s expression changed into one that would have been sympathetic, if it weren’t for the sadistic glint in his eyes. He really was enjoying this all far too much. “Sucks to be you, I guess.”

Stan could only stare back at him, mute and melancholy and resigned. Perhaps if he’d known his days were so numbered, he would have made sure he was better prepared, made more of his sixteen years of life somehow.

“Fuck you,” Kyle snapped at Damien.

What he said, Stan thought meekly.

* * *

Stan was thinking about hell. More specifically, he was thinking about what it would be like and what kind of things he would be forced to do there.

He assumed he would be made into a minion, perhaps turned into a demon and forced into an existence of tormenting sinners for the rest of eternity.

He was having trouble deciding whether or not being turned into a demon would be a good thing. It would be pretty awesome having horns and wings… but then he supposed the eternal damnation would be a bit of a killjoy.

Kyle, who had been sitting at his desk surrounded by a wall of books huffed in annoyance and kicked at Stan's foot where it dangled off the mattress. Stan was lying flat on his back on Kyle’s bed  and staring up at the ceiling. He'd been in that position for almost an hour, not moving, just staring. Everything about him radiated melancholy. He was a big, flaccid pile of misery which seemed to be pissing Kyle off immensely.

“Would you stop feeling sorry for yourself?” Kyle snapped and kicked him again.

Stan shifted just enough to move his foot safely out of reach. He glowered over at Kyle. He didn’t see Kyle with a dated ticket to hell on his forehead. And if he did he was sure Kyle would feel just as miserable.

“We’re not going to achieve anything if you spend the entire week moping. Do you want to fix this?”

“Of course I do,” Stan replied petulantly. He tried to increase his glowering, but it was difficult when he was peering at Kyle from upside down.

“Then suck it up and help me.” Kyle said.

Stan sighed. As much as he wanted to spend the rest of his time feeling shit about life and blaming everyone, specifically his mother, for everything that was wrong in his world, Kyle was right.

The sheer resilience of his friend and the fact that he stubbornly refused to accept Stan's doom gave Stan hope. Perhaps there was a way out of this after-all.

“What are you reading?” he asked and flipped over onto his stomach. He propped himself up on his elbows so he could watch Kyle from the bed. Kyle held up a copy of Milton’s Paradise Lost. The pages were crowded with annotations Kyle had made in the margins.

“Research,” Kyle said. He tossed a copy of Dante’s Inferno to Stan and returned to his own book. “Look to see if you can find anything about anyone else making deals with the devil. Maybe there are loop holes.”

Stan fanned the pages and a musty waft of stale book air made him sneeze. This book had been required reading last year, Stand had spent the entire year avoiding reading it and now Kyle expected him to spend his last week on earth doing homework?

“If we want to know more about the devil why don’t we just ask someone who knows him?” he suggested, tossing the book on the bed and then nudging it further away with his foot.

“And who would that be?”

“Kenny?” Stan suggested. Kyle stilled. He was already hunched with his back to Stan, but somehow he managed to hunch even further.

“Oh…” he said a little sheepishly. “Yeah. I keep forgetting…” he swivelled in his chair, book forgotten. “To Kenny’s?”

Stan smiled, enormously relieved to have successfully ducked out of book duty. If it was a toss up on who knew the devil best between Kenny and Dante, Kenny would kick Dante’s ass.

* * *

Kenny looked amused when they told him of Stan’s plight.

It wasn’t the emotion you particularly hoped to see when telling a friend you had one week left to live. But there it was. Even under the hood of his heavy parker, Kenny's eyes positively twinkled.

“Fuck you, Kenny,” Stan muttered into his milkshake while Kyle just looked disappointed in Kenny. Sometimes Kyle did a better job at playing the disapproving parent than their own mother did.

“Dude, we’re serious. Stan only has seven days. We’ve got to try and find a way to get him out of this.”

“You know,” Kenny said as he took a sizeable slurp of his vanilla maple snickerdoodle malt, paid for by Kyle of course, “Hell’s not all that bad.”

They were tucked away in one of the corner booths of Soda Pop. A soda shack that stayed open year round out of sheer stubbornness, despite the heavy snowfall. Soda Pop was kept in business almost entirely by the pupils of South Park high who were just as stubborn that the snowy climate would not deprive them of their sugary iced dairy fixes.

The décor was kitsch in the best kind of way. Looking like a set piece for a Grease musical complete with candy striped booths and love heart shaped menus.

“Kenny, Stan’s not like you.” Kyle reasoned. Unlike his two friends who had gone for the milkshakes, he’d contented himself with a diet coke float, much to Stan's personal distaste. “If he goes to hell, he’s not coming back.”

Kenny gave Kyle a long look that Stan couldn't read. Sometimes Stan had difficulty reading Kenny at all. His emotions seemed mercurial, happy one moment, brooding the next, then right back round to happy again in the blink of an eye.

“Thanks for the definition,” Kenny said with a wide, not altogether pleasant smile and fastened his lips around the end of his candy cane striped straw. Stan watched the level of Kenny’s milkshake drop.

“But I don’t know what you expect me to do. Just because I spend more time than I’d like down there doesn’t mean I know shit about it.”

“You must know a bit about the devil,” Kyle insisted. “Even if just by proxy.”

' _By proxy?_ ' Kenny mimed the word at Stan. Stan shrugged. Kyle had his thinking head fixed firmly on his shoulders.

“Sorry Kyle, Can’t say I’ve 'by proxied' anything of the devil’s… sounds dirty." Kenny turned his attention back to Stan. "You know, it could be fun, you being the devil's lackey.” He winked. “We could be roommates, share our own cosy little roach infested dungeon. Of course my rent would be time share…” He was mocking them, much like Damien had. This was all a joke to him.

Sometimes Kenny could be a real dick.

Stan had had enough. Just as he was unwilling to spend his last seven days reading, he wasn’t willing to spend it doing this either.

“Screw this, if you're not going to help then why are we even here?” He pushed himself up from the table, all set to leave then and there. Kenny looked up at him and Stan wasn’t sure if he was surprised, irritated, or something else entirely. One thing for sure, he wasn’t smiling any more.

“Sit down,” Kenny sighed. “Jesus, stop being such a pussy. If you can’t laugh what can you do?”

Stan sat down.

“This is serious, Kenny,” he said. “We came to you for help, if you got nothing then fine, but don’t fuck us around.”

Kenny matched his gaze. His eyes were measured, thoughtful behind sandy lashes.

“Damien told you there'd be omens, right?"

"Yeah." Stan blinked. "How'd--?"

"There's always omens. The devil's nothing if not a showman. How many did he tell you?"

"Three."

Kenny nodded, frowning. "Okay. Three, we can work with three."

"Wait does that mean you're going to help?" Stan asked, hopeful. "Really?"

“Really,” he said, and behind the partial shield of his hood, he glanced at Kyle then back at Stan and smiled. “After all, what are friends for?”

 


	3. Chapter 3

 

Kenny’s plan was apparently to track down Damien (again) and shake him for more information (again), only he wanted to do it alone.

“Because he hates you guys,” was how he explained it when Stan and Kyle asked why. And then added, “Nothing against you guys, he just hates this town. Thinks everyone’s a dirty stinking redneck.”

“So why does he like you?” Kyle challenged, looking affronted. 

“Who do you think I hang out with when I’m down there?” Kenny answered easily, like it was the most obvious thing on earth.

""We're not just going to sit around here while you laugh it up with your old buddy," Kyle scowled. Kenny scowled back at him.

"Come with me then," Kenny said finally. "But don't be surprised if you don't get much."

And so the three of them went to find Damien which, of course, they did so without much difficulty, the kid was like a bad penny cropping up everywhere.

"Keep your distance at least," Kenny advised before crossing the street to greet Damien. Kyle and Stan sat on a bench, watching them.

“So, what, are they like best friends now?” Kyle said sourly as  Kenny gave Damien a playful punch and Damien smiled a smile that contained no malice, mockery, or other generally evil intent. They looked like two old friends discussing the game last night.

Stan shrugged, he scuffed his shoe against the curb, hands thrust deep in his pockets. Kyle scoffed. He didn’t seem happy at all, in fact he was glaring.

“Why do you care so much, anyway?” Stan asked.

“I don’t,” Kyle retorted quickly. He continued to scowl drown the street. He looked almost jealous.

Kenny said somethingthing to Damien, who nodded and the two clasped hands in a warriors’ handshake which brought on another derisive snort from Kyle, and then Kenny returned, crossing the road at a casual lope.

“He says your mum never actually signed anything,” Kenny said.

“So that’s... good?”

Kenny sniffed, rubbing at his nose with the sleeve of his parka. “It means it’s not completely binding… not as much as if it was signed in blood or something.”

“So we can get out of it?” Stan asked hopefully.

“Maybe.” Kenny sniffed again. “What’s wrong with you?” he seemed to have noticed Kyle’s stormy countenance for the first time.

“Nothing,” Kyle snapped. “What else did he say?”

“He doesn’t know how keen his dad is on reeling Stan in or if it’s just one of those things.” Kenny’s voice had taken on an edge that hadn’t been present before and he seemed to be intent on staring Kyle down. “Pretty much we’ll know how serious he is when the first omen comes along.”

“Do we even know when that’ll be?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Great, well then we’ll see you tomorrow.” Kyle said primly as he turned about face. He grabbed Stan’s arm and they strode away, leaving Kenny standing in the street, glowering after them.

"What the hell was that?" Stan asked, looking back at Kenny as Kyle continued to drag him.

"What the hell was what?" Something about Kyle's tone told Stan to let whatever it was lie. He got the distinct impression that he had missed out on something pretty big, but he was damned if he knew what.

* * *

The next day saw them lounging in Stan’s bedroom, Kenny having joined them around about late morning. Stan had been expecting some degree of tension between Kenny and Kyle but whatever had transpired the day before seemed to have been forgotten about. It was Sunday and whilst they knew they had pressing matters… the fact that it was a Sunday was having an effect and they all seemed to be feeling decidedly slovenly.

Kenny was lying on his back on the bed, tossing a baseball up in the air and catching it before it hit him in the face. His hood had fallen back and his shaggy blonde hair fell over his eyes and in every which way.

Kyle, who had nabbed the bean bag, watched Kenny from where he was half sat and half sprawled over the floor, beanbag wedged between his back and the cupboard door.

Stan sat in a chair by the window, head resting in his arms. The dead husk of a wasp was curled in front of him on the windowsill and its dusty wings quivered every time he took a breath.

His mother came in carrying a tray of drinks and snacks. She'd been doing everything in her power to make it up to Stan since the whole devil deal had come to light and whilst on one level it pained Stan to see her so guilty as he couldn't blame her for a foolish mistake she’d made years ago... another somewhat selfish part of him revelled in the sudden special treatment.

“Thanks mom,” he said as she placed the tray on his desk. Kenny had already pounced on it and was helping himself to a handful of potato chips and cookies.

“You’re welcome, sweety.” She hovered, wringing her hands together. “I’ve scheduled an appointment with Jesus for tomorrow,” she announced. Kenny mumbled something around a mouthful of cookie that sounded an awful lot like that  wouldn’t do any good, but Stan chose to ignore it.

“Thanks, mom, he should be able to help.”

“I hope so… I really hope so…”

“Bye mom,” he smiled and waved before she could apologise again. He was beginning to get very tired of hearing that word.

He hoped his mother would be able to get over it soon, after all he’d managed. His father, for the most part seemed okay. Randy just seemed relieved that for once, it hadn’t been him doing the screwing up.

Once Sharon left the room, Stan turned to face Kyle and Kenny, both of whom were by the food tray; however Kyle was picking at it with a little more reserve than Kenny.

“So are we going to do anything or just wait around for this ‘omen’ to show up?” he asked.

“Not much we can do 'til it shows up.” Kenny said once he had swallowed a mouthful of cookies and washed it down with a swig of soda.

“What’s it going to be anyway? Is it going to be like a hellhound or something?” Kyle asked, he picked a chocolate chip from one of the cookies and popped it in his mouth.

Kenny sat back down on the bed and wedged another cookie in his mouth. His cheeks bulged around it like an overgrown hamster.

“I mean… it could be anything, even just a mark. One time the devil made the guy himself the omen… that got a bit weird.”

“Does the devil do this shit a lot?” Kyle asked, he sat down on the opposite edge of the bed to Kenny with his back to Stan but Stan knew what his expression would be like. Shrewd eyes narrowed and upper lip twisted in a combination of curiosity and distaste.

Kenny bobbed his head. “Amongst other things, he likes making deals for first born kids… usually sons. He’s kind of a traditionalist like that.”

“Traditionalist… more like sexist.”

“Well you know… he mostly just does it for shits and giggles because he can.”

“Shits and giggles.”

“Yes Kyle,” Kenny said, beginning to sound exasperated. “That is what I said.”

Kyle retorted with something caustic, but Stan had stopped listening. He'd dropped his head back on the windowsill, drowning out their bickering as he stared out at the snowy street beyond. Something in the corner of his eye caught his attention. The dead wasp on the windowsill. He was sure he’d just seen it twitch. He concentrated on the shrivelled insect, holding his breath, and sure enough, it moved again. It twitched first one antenna, then the next, and then it stretched out one spindly yellow and black leg. He could see the feelers around its mouth flexing as they stretched and grew accustomed to life again.

Huh, Stan thought. That was strange.

The wasp lurched to its feet with a brittle, unnatural jerk. Its head twisted from side to side until it was staring up at Stan with its faded compound eyes. With a clacking of feelers and a whirr of its wings, it took flight, circling the room.

Where his ear was still pressed against the white painted wood of the window sill, Stan began to hear a low hum. Lifting his head, he realised that the hum was coming from the heating vent by his feet.

It sounded like the buzzing of thousands of insect wings, and it was growing.

“Um… guys?”

Kenny and Kyle stopped their not-quite-argument and looked at him.

“So this omen… could it maybe be a dead wasp coming back to life and bringing its friends along for the ride?”

“What?” Kyle’s voice had the calm, dead quality of someone who was just on the wrong side of panic.

Kenny must have heard the buzzing too as he leapt from the bed, grabbed Kyle’s discarded beanbag and yanked Stan away from the vent all in one move. He thrust the beanbag over the vent, pressing hard against it.

“Yeah,” he said a little breathless from adrenaline. “I’d say that’d be the first omen, yeah.”

“What the fuck?” Kyle's breathing had grown irregular and he'd crawled into the middle of the bed, looking around like he expected to see hundreds of insects creepy crawling over the floor. “Wasps…? Is that… fucking wasps?”

The sound of buzzing seemed to be coming from all around them, it filled the wall cavities, under the floorboards, in the roof rafters. The entire outer skeleton of Stan's home was, from the sound of it, infested with undead wasps.

“Shit,” Stan gasped. “My parents!” He ran for the door but Kenny grabbed him.

“They’ll be fine. They’re only after you.”

“Well that’s comforting.” Stan's face had gone chalky white, the thought of being surrounded by hundreds of wasps with only a thin layer of boarding separating them was bad enough… but to know that each and every one of those wasps was as aware of him as he was of them… and only him… that was pretty damn terrifying. His eyes frantically searched the room for any holes or access points that they could crawl through. Luckily for him, the only gateway between the wall cavities and his room looked to be the heating vent, which was already covered.

“This is a pretty big first omen,” Kenny said and he didn’t look happy. “The devil must really want you… shit.”

“Fuck!” Kyle’s sudden yelp had both of them turning to the bed. Kyle was pointing at Stan’s back. “Don’t move,” he warned.

Stan couldn’t see, but he didn’t have to. He knew it was the wasp from the window sill, he did the only thing he could think to do, he squeezed his eyes shut as tightly as he possibly could and froze. It wasn’t the bravest of reactions, but he didn’t know what else he could do. He was cinvinced that he could hear the clacking of feelers as the wasp crawled up onto his shoulder. His skin tingled at the imagined touch of its legs.

“Shit man, take your jacket off! Take it off!” Kenny grabbed Stan and all but ripped the jacket from his shoulders. Stan twisted and writhed until he was free of the clothing and stumbled backwards. The backs of his knees hit the edge of the bed and he he tumbled into Kyle. Kenny flung the jacket on the floor and stamped on it crushing any flash of yellow that he happened to see.

“I think I got it…” he said finally on a heavy breath.

“Well the jacket's definitely dead,” Kyle said quietly. His eyes twitched feverishly to the beanbag. Stan knew how he felt, he couldn’t help the growing paranoia that any second, they’d see a pair of antenna and feelers crawling up its side. The drone from behind the walls was frantic now, a dull roar of zombie wasps.

“Dude… did you have a fucking wasps nest in there or something?” Kyle half laughed, half whimpered.

Stan was about to bite back a response when he felt Kyle freeze under him with a sharp inhale.

“It’s still on you.”

And then Stan felt it, legs tickling at his neck as the wasp crawled from his collar onto his skin. But he couldn't move, because just as he felt the wasp on his neck, he felt something crawling over his hand, along his ankle, down his back.

“What the fuck,” Kyle hissed and scrambled out from under Stan in a near panic. “Where are they coming from??”

Stan saw them then, hundreds of wasps crawling out from the seams of his clothing. He could feel them writhing over each other, covering his flesh, their stingers so damn close.

He panicked. He flung himself off the bed and ripped the shirt off his back but more came. They covered his chest and stomach, he could feel them in his hair, tiny feet tickling his scalp. They dropped down in front of his vision onto the floor.

“Holy shit, man,” Kyle cried somewhere to his side. “Holy shit!” Stan felt him and Kenny scrabbling at his skin, trying to scoop the insects off but no matter how many fell, more came. They crawled up his neck and along his jaw, feelers twitching by his lips.

Stan whimpered, his heart beat racing, too petrified to shout even. He shut his eyes and shut down, painfully aware of the tickling of every single leg and fluttering of every single wing.

“Don’t let them sting him!” he heard Kenny shout. But it was too late. There was a sharp twinge on his collar bone, like a needle piercing skin. It pulsed, radiating through his veins in agonising waves and he let out a wail.

That was when he felt them in his mouth, flooding in as soon as he opened it. They crawled along the inside of his cheeks. One took flight and landed on the back of his tongue, its bristles tickling the roof of his mouth.

“Oh fuck!” he heard Kyle’s frantic shout but it sounded liked it was coming from the other end of a very long, dark tunnel. Stan fell into merciful darkness, not even feeling when he hit the floor.

 


	4. Chapter 4

When Stan came to, the first thing he noticed was the softness of the bed beneath him. He wondered how he got on the bed, tried to remember where he had been before that. And then it hit him, _oh god_ , he’d fainted… he’d honest to god fainted. Granted it was because of the swarm of undead wasps choking him, but even then… he was not going to live this down.

He heard the quiet drone of his friends' voices coming from somewhere in the room and he kept as still as possible, careful to moderate his breathing to mimc a deep sleep. He was not ready to face their jeering yet, if he had his way, the comforter would swallow him whole so he would never have to face them. Why couldn’t the wasp sting have just killed him?

“Is he okay?” Kyle’s voice drifted over. He heard footsteps moving towards him. Stan focused on keeping his face placid and his eyelids still. The footsteps moved away.

“Don’t worry,” Kenny said with a wry tone. “Your precious Stan is fine.”

“Oh for…” Stan heard Kyle sigh. “Don’t be like that.”

“Be like what?” said Kenny with false innocence.

Kyle, it seemed, chose to ignore him and there was a moment of silence as they busied themselves with whatever it was they were doing. There was a grating of metal against wood and a dull thunk. One of them had pried the heating vent open. Checking for wasps, Stan supposed. The room was silent again, the drone of wasps was nothing but a horrible memory now.  But the thing with insects was that even the memory of them was enough to make your skin crawl.

“How could they all just disappear like that?” Kyle wondered aloud. From the location of his voice, he was the one checking the vent. “Were they even real or was it some kind of mass hallucination?”

“They were real enough to sting him.” 

As if triggered by Kenny’s words, Stan felt a painful throbbing in his collarbone, pulsing in rhythm to the beat of his heart. God damn but it hurt.

More silence. The mattress by Stan’s feet sagged as Kenny sat down.

“So...” Kenny said in a pointed manner.

“So…?” Kyle responded a little more uncertainly.

“Are we going to talk about it or what?”

This piqued Stan’s curiosity, he knew there’d been a ‘thing' going on between Kyle and Kenny. Stan wasn't the most observant of people but even he had picked up on that much. Whilst he felt guilty about eavesdropping on his two friends, he figured it was only fair as the tension was affecting him just as much as it was affecting them and it was beginning to piss him off.

Kyle sighed. “What’s there to talk about? Haven’t we already said everything we need to?”

“Then why’ve you been acting like such a little bitch lately?”

“I haven’t,” Kyle snapped, defensive. “Ok fine…" He sighed again.  "I just didn’t realise you’d gotten so chummy with Damien… but then I guess that’s what you do down there, so great. It's not like it’s got anything to do with me anymore…” The last part was said quietly, resentfully and Stan wondered who Kyle was kidding with his ‘not caring’ act when it was obvious even to him that he really did care.

“You’re right,” Kenny said and his voice was cold. “It’s nothing to do with you.” And then something in the air seemed to change as Kenny leant back on the bed, Stan felt his palms press into the mattress by his knee, propping him up. “Christ, Kyle… you were the one that ended it, remember?”

Kyle snorted. “Like you gave me much of a choice,” he muttered.

And there it was. Stan finally knew what had been eating at his two friends. What had been, as Cartman would say, the figurative sand in their vaginas.

Kenny and Kyle had broken up. Kenny and Kyle had even been together?

Shit.

Stan felt too guilty listening to any more. He let out a theatrical groan, perhaps a little over the top, and rolled over, blinking his eyes sleepily. The drowsiness wasn't faked. His eyelids felt weighted down and sticky like they'd been lined with glue.

“Morning princess,” Kenny grinned at him. Kyle’s head popped up from the foot of the bed, he studied Stan with anxious eyes and Stan figured he was trying to deduce how much he might have overheard. Stan couldn’t hold his gaze for long and he pushed himself up, rubbing at his neck. It felt swollen and when he craned his neck to look in the mirror, he could see a white bump ringed with angry red skin.

“Are you okay, Stan?” Kyle climbed to his feet and moved closer to his friend’s side.

Stan blinked at him. “That fucker stung me,” he said, voice verging on a whine.

“Yeah it did,” Kenny said, his grin having grown to a level classed as 'shit eating'. “Bad omen.”

* * *

 

Kenny excused himself soon after Stan woke up with the assurance that no more omens would occur that day. If anything, the devil was a showman, he had a flare for the dramatic and he liked to string things out. Kenny promised he’d try to come up with something overnight and took off, with only the smallest of glances at Kyle.

The look was clear, their conversation wasn’t over.

Stan felt guilty for having interrupted them in the first place, but try as he might, he couldn’t convince Kyle to leave with Kenny. The zombie wasp incident had left a haunted look in Kyle’s eyes and he stuck by Stan’s side, insisting that he’d call his mum to let her know he was sleeping over.

And even though Stan felt guilty, he was grateful because being alone was not something he particularly cared for right now.

“Here,” Kyle said, tossing a small tube over, it landed on the mattress next to him. “See if that helps.” Stan picked it up, it was an anti-inflammatory cream that Kyle had found in the bathroom cabinet. They’d both agreed not to tell Stan’s parents about the incident. Neither seemed to have heard the buzzing, which added to the mass hallucination theory, and they figured that Stan’s mother was feeling guilty enough as it was.

Grateful, Stan opened the tube and squeezed a generous amount onto his finger. He rubbed it tentatively over the sting. It hadn't gone down at all, in fact the redness and puffiness seemed to have increased since last he checked it. He hissed at the unpleasant sensation as he rubbed the cream over the inflamed area.

“Ouch,” Kyle winced in sympathy. “You’re not allergic are you?”

“No,” Stan said, then checked himself. “Well not to normal wasps, anyway.” He wished he hadn’t said that when images of zombies came to mind… what if he was going to mutate into a giant undead wasp?

To distract himself, he turned his mind to other things.

“So, you and Kenny, huh?.”

Kyle blanched, if it was possible for a person to shrink into their own skin and disappear, Stan was sure Kyle would have done it.

“Fuck…” Kyle muttered under his breath. "You heard?"

Stan nodded, feeling like he should apologise.

“Does it bother you?”

"What the fuck, dude? Of course it doesn't," Stan said, eager to reassure his friend that nothing he could ever do would ever be an issue to him. Especially not Kyle being gay... or bi, or whatever. Though it worried him that he'd previously had no idea about Kyle and Kenny. He saw them almost every day. Had there been pointers that he’d just been oblivious to? Did that mean he was a shitty friend?

“How long had it been going on? How dumb should I be feeling right now for not realising sooner?”

“We hid it pretty well,” Kyle said. He seemed to be having a hard time meeting Stan’s gaze. “I don’t know.” His shoulders slumped. “It didn’t seem all that serious until after it had already ended…”

That struck a chord with Stan, not knowing what you have til it’s gone, he’d felt that pretty much every time he and Wendy had broken up. Which was probably the reason they could never stay broken up for long. The trouble was that in his experience, the newfound realisation of just how precious the other person was to you never seemed to last.

“When did it end?” seemed the most obvious question.

“When he died for real that time.”

Kenny died so often it was hard to recall any one time. But Stan remembered a time a couple months back when Kenny had stayed dead long enough for them to think maybe, just maybe it was permanent this time.

That must have been all in all a pretty fucked up time for Kyle.

“I’m sorry man…”

“Yeah,” Kyle shrugged and picked at a loose thread on Stan's bedspread, a ghost of the pain from those months flickering across his expression for the briefest of moments. “It was hard. But I was just getting round to accepting the fact that he was gone… and then he came back.”

That didn’t ring entirely true to Stan, whilst it must have been a real head fuck and emotional roller coaster for Kyle-- surely it should have been a good thing having the person you cared for return from the dead. Especially when you’ve only just realised the true depths of your feelings.

“Anyway.” Kyle broke the sombre air with a slap of his hands against his knees. “He’s over it, I’m over it, everyone’s good.”

“Sure man,” Stan said. “Whatever you say.” Even as he thought just how not over it either Kyle or Kenny looked.

* * *

 

The following day and Stan hid behind the pile of books on his desk and groaned internally. The teacher droned on about something or other up front, but he hadn’t been listening. Honestly, he wasn’t even certain if it was English class or History that they were in.

He scratched at his neck, tugging the collar of his shirt away from the throbbing sting. It had steadily gotten worse throughout the day and now it felt like his entire body pulsed along with it.

School was the last place he wanted to be, but apparently being carted off by the devil in less than a week did not excuse him from lessons. When he had tried, Kyle had only frowned and told him to stop milking it.

Sometimes he hated Kyle.

He hated school, but mostly, he hated Kyle.

To top things off, he’d had a terrible night’s sleep. His dreams had been plagued with giant wasp queens and writhing insect larvae that wore his blue woollen hat and had his eyes. At one point, he’d been running down endless corridors, forever turning corners only to find more corridors with even more corners. There’d been an unnerving sense of urgency in the dream, like he’d been chasing something, or something had been chasing him and he could never quite work out which it was. Perhaps it was both.

Something poked him in the side and Stan looked down to see a hand depositing a note in his lap. He glanced at Kyle, sitting next to him and Kyle inclined his head, indicating he hurry up and read the note.

Stan opened it, scribbled in Kyle’s neat cursive was: Have you seen Kenny?

And thinking back, Stan hadn’t seen Kenny at all. He didn’t have many lessons with Kenny, but the school was small enough that he usually bumped into him at least once in the corridors. He shook his head. Kyle didn’t look happy about this and he frowned at the blackboard for the rest of the lesson.

Stan hoped Kenny hadn’t managed to get himself killed again, the timing of that would be extremely inconvenient.

Finally, after what felt like a hundred lifetimes played on repeat, the bell rang for the end of school. Stan dragged himself along the corridor next to Kyle, still feeling thoroughly miserable and full of self pity.

He noticed that Kyle was texting furiously on his cell phone. It vibrated when he still had it out in his hands. Kyle scanned the text, and then pocketed the phone.

“That was Kenny,” Kyle said, glancing at Stan. “He said to meet him at the Soda Pop.”

“So Kenny’s allowed to miss school but I’m not?”

Kyle only scowled at him and his expression read ‘Kenny is NOT the person to be taking lessons from.’

Kyle had his mothering head on again. Great.

Kenny was waiting for them in the same corner booth as before. Surprisingly, he’d bought himself a milkshake out of his own money and was in the middle of slurping it down when they arrived. He was still dressed in the same clothes he had worn the previous day, although there wasn’t much variation to what he wore on any given day.

“How was school?” Kenny asked with a gloating smirk once they’d bought themselves a drink and sat down.

“Educational…” Stan muttered. He noticed Kenny staring intently at him, like he was seeing him only for the first time. “What?” He shifted uncomfortably. Kenny tilted his head, blonde hair falling over his brows.

“What’s up with your eyes? They’re looking kinda filmy… like a bugs…”

“What the fuck?” Stan leapt from his seat in a blind panic. He had every intention of making a run for the bathroom but Kyle yanked on his sleeve, pulling him back down.

“Calm down,” he said quietly. “He’s joking.” Kyle scowled at Kenny, whose shoulders were shaking in silent mirth. “That was mean.”

“The look on your face…” Kenny’s face was turning beet red from barely contained laughter. He let out a snort and then a whoop. Stan, still overcome with the overwhelming urge to study himself in the mirror for any signs of mutation, glared as darkly as he could.

“You son of a bitch…” he muttered, seething.

“Dude.” Kenny’s laughter subsided enough that he was only shaken with the odd chuckle in between sips of milkshake. “Chill, you’re fine, I just couldn’t resist, man. I didn’t think you’d actually believe me.”

“He’s paranoid that he’s going to go all Jeff Goldblum on us,” Kyle explained and Stan was annoyed that even he sounded a little amused.

The both of them were dicks. Absolute dicks.

He squinted at his upside down reflection in the concave side of his spoon. Kenny, seeming to have grown tired of his fun, rubbed his hands together in a ‘now then’ manner.

“I spoke to Damien again,” he said and ignored Kyle’s indelicate snort. “The no paperwork thing is mostly a good thing. You’ve got two ways of getting out of it. On your birthday, the devil’s going to send one of his guys up here to collect you, you’re either gonna have to vanquish whoever or whatever it is. Or get it to believe that it’s here to collect someone else. Which would be a pretty shitty thing to do, but hey, at least it’s not you.”

“I nominate Cartman,” Kyle said.

“What’s the bad news?” Stan sighed, because he knew there was going to be some and not just from Kenny’s carefully phrased ‘mostly a good thing’. There was always a flip side. Kenny glanced at him and the look confirmed that yes, there was and no, he wasn’t going to like it.

“No paperwork means no restrictions on either side. As much as you can change things and wriggle out of shit, the devil can too. You might’ve thought that the zombie wasps were overkill… but that was him just getting started.” He sighed and tightened his lips humourlessly. “This is gonna be a fun week…”


	5. Chapter 5

The second omen came on the wednesday afternoon in science class..

 It was one of the few classes that Stan didn't have with Kyle. Kyle was in the advanced class and Stan was struggling along in remedial with Cartman.

He tried not to let the fact that he was on his own get to him. Over the past two days, Stan had worked himself into something of a state; second-guessing anything and everything, convinced the second omen was waiting just around the corner.

Only the other day, Kyle had been forced to drag him away from an elderly woman and her dog that he’d all but sworn was a banshee come to finish him off with her hell beast.

Stan slumped in his stool, dropping his head on the desk. He was tired. He'd never felt so tired before. He couldn't remember the last time he'd managed to sleep without being woken up by some kind of nightmare.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Cartman asked in his usual charming manner.

Stan grunted, not in the mood to deal with Cartman.

The teacher stood up front with her back to the class as she scribbled on the blackboard. Cartman was twisting one of the gas points on and off, making the room smell heavily of eggs.

They were studying anatomy, which meant at some point they would be dissecting animals, most likely frogs. Stan had a feeling it would be happening today.

He wasn’t particularly relishing the idea. He had a weak stomach at the best of times and he wasn’t certain how well it would stand up to the sight of cold grey frog innards spilling out over the table.

Plus he tended to see it as a cruel fate for the poor frogs; perhaps they had wanted more from life than to end up the subject of an unskilled scalpel held in the panicked hands of a teenager.

A meaty hand jabbed into his side and Stan twisted to glower at Cartman.

"What?" he ground out.

"What?" Cartman mimicked. "What's with you? you're acting like someone killed your dog and ate it in front of you... is Kyle sick? Is he dying?"

Stan chose to ignore the hopeful glint in Cartman's eyes as he said this.

"I'm just tired," Stan replied. "Quit crowding me, move back over to your side." He elbowed Cartman as he said this and Cartman shuffled his stool a few inches away from Stan with a noisy clatter that had the teacher pausing and glancing in their direction.

Stan sat up, waiting until she had turned around again before slumping back down.

"Nice going," he muttered, grimacing when he heard Cartman mimicking him.

Stan's dissection fears were confirmed when the teacher went around the class depositing a small silver scalpel wrapped in white cloth beside each student.

“Now then, class,” she said, returning to her position up front. “As you are aware, today we are studying anatomy. If you could all prepare your scalpels we will turn to our dissection subject, Stanley Marsh."

“Wait, what?” Stan sat up, had he heard that right? No one else seemed to be reacting in shock. In fact the class quite calmly moved as one and lifted their scalpels from the cloths. The silver blades flashed and winked under the fluorescent overhead lighting. Even Cartman had gone quiet, his eyes looked glazed as he lifted his scalpel, staring straight ahead.

“He may put up a fight so first I’m going to have to sedate him.” The teacher went to the shelf of chemicals beside the blackboard. She picked up a clear glass bottle and emptied the contents into a white cloth. “This is just simple chloroform, nothing fancy but it will do the trick.”

Stan looked around with wide eyes, certain that this had to be some kind of bad dream or twisted joke.

Everyone seemed so… calm. The entire class had turned in their seats now to face him. Watching him with placid, vacant eyes. Cartman, sitting right beside him stared at him, scalpel gleaming in his hand.

Stan shuffled rapidly away on his stool.

"Cartman... Cartman come on, wake up."

The teacher moved across the classroom like a wraith, cloth held in one hand as she advanced on Stan.

Stan jumped down from his stool, backing up until he hit the wall behind him.

“What the hell’s going on?” he demanded, but no one answered.

“You’ll see he’s displaying the classic signs of fear,” the teacher stated. “Note the widening of his eyes and the quickening of his breath. This, boys and girls, is fight or flight.”

Stan could smell the chemicals on the cloth as she raised it. She was a few feet away from him but he could still smell the thick acrid stench that tingled in his nostrils. She made a swipe for him and he ducked and stumbled backwards between the rows of desks He was painfully aware of the line of scalpel wielding students positioned so closely to his left. For now, no one had moved, but he knew he was in easy arms reach of any one of those blades.

The teacher followed him. She watched him with the detached curiosity of a bird watching a helpless writhing worm trapped in its talons.

“It generally takes three to four seconds to have an effect, but careful you don’t have him breathe it for too long, or it will kill him.”

Stan’s left foot tangled in the strap of a bag and he fell, landing hard. The impact jarred his arms and rattled his teeth, he couldn't afford to stop however and crab crawled backwards as the teacher continued to stalk him. Her head cocked to the side and he couldn’t shake the imagery of her as a giant bird of prey.

Dozens of vacant eyes followed him. Stan reached the other end of the classroom. He realised, with some relief that he was right opposite the door, but there was a whole row of scalpel wielding classmates between it and him. Stan clambered to his feet, ducked as the teacher made another swipe for him with the cloth and then raced for the door.

Hands grappled for him, he saw a flash of silver out of the corner of his eye and felt the bite in the air as a scalpel missed him by only a fraction.

Stan let out a panicked yelp and whipped his arm back. He heard the scraping of dozens of stools as the class stood as one. They moved quickly, urgently, but their faces remained so damn calm. And then Cartman was in front of him, his girth blocking the doorway better than any barricade. He lashed out as Stan dodged around him and his scalpel hit its mark. It sliced into Stan's arm with a burst of red-hot pain and Stan shrieked.

He fell against the door, stumbling through it. He flew down the corridor, shoes squeaking over linoleum, certain that he could still hear them behind him. Their eyes watching him like he was a slab of very strange meat that just needed to be sliced open and examined. He raced through the hallways, turning at random, going through any doorway that he thought would throw them off.

And all the while, the only thing that went through his mind was ‘what the fuck? What the actual fuck?’

Stan didn’t stop until he was right on the opposite side of the school. He could feel the blood pumping in his ears as his heart raced. His throat was raw and ragged but he didn't dare slow down. He wanted to keep running right out of the school grounds, far, far away from here. And he would have done if it weren’t for the fact that he collided with the yielding blockade of another body. Whoever it was fell to the ground and let out a winded ‘oof’.

Stan scrambled free and saw Kyle lying under him, blinking up with dazed eyes.

"Kyle!" he sobbed. He wanted to cry with relief.

"Stan?"

“It happened, man,” he gasped, trying to swallow air even though his mouth and throat felt bone dry.

“The second omen… fucking kids... Cartman… fucking scalpels… it happened!”

Kyle sat up, his eyes focused on Stan’s arm, on the streaks of bright red blood.

Stand followed his gaze. The sight of the blood only made the experience all the more real. "They were going to cut me open," he said, feeling suddenly light headed. He swayed on his knees. 

“That’s terrible…” Kyle said in a strange voice.

It was then that Stan saw the needle in Kyle’s grasp. It was one of Kyle's insulin needles, only it was empty, the plunger pulled right back.

Kyle climbed slowly to his feet, gripping the needle tightly. He noticed Stan looking at it.

“I’m pretty good at finding veins,” he said almost conversationally, holding the needle up for inspection. “Once the air gets in your bloodstream it’ll only take a few seconds to reach your heart." He took a step towards Stan. “Don’t worry,” Kyle reassured, his eyes had the same empty calm as the teacher’s. “You probably won’t feel a thing.”

In the many years that they had been friends, Stan couldn’t remember ever hurting Kyle. Not intentionally.

Up until that moment, he’d never dreamt of ever causing real harm to Kyle. Even now, he didn’t want to, whatever had come over Kyle and the entire science class, he knew it was down to the devil and was beyond their control.

But Kyle wasn’t exactly giving him much of a choice.

“I’m sorry, Kyle,” he said and he knocked the needle out of Kyle’s grasp. Kyle hissed, watching as it skittered across the floor and Stan took advantage of the distraction and grabbed him. Kyle squirmed and writhed in his grasp, battering him with his balled up fists but Stan held on.

"Stop it!" Stan shouted to the sky as he weathered the battering with grim determination. "This isn't fair, stop possessing my friend!"

Kyle continued to thrash in his grasp, he reminded Stan of a wildcat hissing and clawing at him. Then Kyle dug his fingernails into the gash on his arm. Stan cried out in pain and reacting on instinct he pushed Kyle away. He'd intended just to throw him against a wall, to stun Kyle but as luck would have it, they were standing right at the top of a flight of stairs and when Stan pushed him, he pushed Kyle right towards the edge. 

Kyle hovered there for moment, suspended in a point between action and inaction. Stan watched, frozen in horror. Their eyes met, the chilling emptiness melted from Kyle's eyes, turning first to confusion and then to fear. He reached out to Stan but it was already too late, he was already tipping over the edge.

Stan gave a horrified shout as he watched his friend disappear.

“Oh god, oh fuck oh Jesus, Kyle..." Please don't let it be real, please let this be some horrible hallucination. Please let him wake up back in the science lab where no one was trying to kill him.

Only it wasn’t a dream. it was real and Kyle was lying at the foot of the stairs, his body sprawled awkwardly like some kind of broken rag-doll.

Stan raced down the stairs, almost tripping over his own feet. He dropped down next to Kyle, staring helplessly at one of his outstretched arms, bent in a way it never should have been. Kyle's fingers were curled into his palm and an abstract part of Stan's brain noted that the nails were chewed down to the quick.

“Kyle,” Stan's hands hovered over his friend, desperate to do something but terrified to touch him. All he knew was what he shouldn’t do, the voices of his parents and every other authoritative figure echoed in his ears, instructing him not to move the casualty in case of spinal damage. “Kyle!”

Kyle didn't respond. His head lay twisted to the side. Stan could just make out one closed eyelid, partially covered by red corkscrew curls. It struck Stan dimly that Kyle must have lost his hat during the fall.

Stan heard footsteps and he turned to see a girl approaching them from one of the downstairs corridors. She moved easily at first, binder clutched to her chest and lost in her own little world, and then she froze as she registered the scene in front of her.

“Oh my god…” Her face paled and she clutched her binder all the more tightly.

“He fell…” Stan managed weakly. “I… we need an ambulance…”

The girl stared at him, stunned, then something seemed to snap into gear and she fumbled in her pockets for her phone.

“Ambulance… South Park High. There’s a boy, I – I think he fell or something…”

Stan only caught a few of her words but by that point he’d stopped listening. He looked back at Kyle.

There was no way this was a dream. It all felt much too horribly real.


End file.
